It seemed funnier then, but last fall, when there was a serious run of schools leaving the Big East, someone posited the question as to whether one school could hit the jackpot simply by being the last conference school standing, thus getting everyone else's lucrative exit fees.

It's nearly come to that, as the Big East looks to have just USF, Cincinnati and Connecticut remaining of its 15 current basketball members; and sure enough, according to former Boston Globe writer Mark Blaudschun, each of those schools should be getting a check for between $18 million and $25 million, collecting huge shares of the reserve fund built up through exit fees, NCAA "units" and incoming entrance fees.

A few weeks back, when the numbers on the ESPN TV-rights deal came in, there looked to be a shortfall of about $1.2 million or so from even the current deal full Big East members were getting. This lump-sum check from the Big East should allow USF to operate at or above its current athletic budget for the immediate future, without dropping any programs, making any substantial cuts to staff or anything else drastic.

Again, negotiations with the departing basketball schools are ongoing so all of this is subject to tweaking, but there seems to be a small financial silver lining in the Bulls remaining with the Big East and eventually moving on to the unnamed league of their future. ...

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